The Ultimate Guide to Nearshore Software Development in 2023

In the current software development market, outsourcing is a preferred choice for businesses of all sizes and industries all over the globe. Companies can take various approaches to expand their development practices through it and be safe from the uncertainty of the global atmosphere as well as the whims of the local talent pool.

Companies implement more common strategies by hiring multiple staff and outsourcing to offshore and nearshore suppliers. Both methods are in trend with their pros and cons, but the challenge arises when you have to pick one to scale up your business. This article will emphasize the development of nearshore outsourcing and its advantages, which differentiate it from other outsourcing models.

What is Nearshore Software Development?

Nearshore outsourcing entails delegating software development work to vendors in adjacent nations or similar time zones. The main focus of this service is that it can focus on the needs of the business – keeping operations and delivery parallel. Businesses hire nearshore development partners mainly to gain better control over their operational costs and, as a result, improve their bottom lines. Nearshore outsourcing offers certain advantages, such as cultural and linguistic similarities, proximity to a location, and fewer time zone disparities.

Why Should You Consider Nearshore Software Development?

The nearshore software development technique is a fantastic way to build cost-effective solutions that benefit everyone in this technological advancement and creativity age. These are the main benefits of the nearshore software development process:

1. Quicker Time to Market

Since nearshoring enables better collaboration, the overall time to market is also reduced. In this highly competitive market, a shorter time to market is a decisive factor for business success.

2. Access to Resources & Talent Pools

Finding the right talent in-house can be challenging. One of the most critical advantages of nearshore outsourcing is the ability to tap into the enormous global talent pool. It also enables enterprises to benefit from other countries’ infrastructure and technological capabilities to develop a robust IT product or service.

3. Focus on Core Business Skills

Companies can focus more on their core strengths when outsourcing some of their IT requirements. Nearshore software development helps companies devote their time and effort by allowing their internal team to focus on other necessary activities.

4. Advanced Risk Management

When companies divide and delegate IT development components and operations across various nearshoring providers, they take a step toward risk mitigation. The sole requirement is to conduct thorough research to find the best-fit vendor before assigning the tasks.

5. Smooth Communication

Communication might be difficult when outsourcing to a faraway foreign country owing to linguistic and cultural issues. Nearshore outsourcing, however, solves this problem. Similar time zones and ways of communication can enable improved communication between both teams.

How to Choose the Right Nearshoring Company for Your Business?

You need to look for many factors when hiring a software development partner. If you approach the selection process with the proper planning, you will be able to find a partner that meets and exceeds your needs. Let’s check out how you can do that:

1. Make Sure They Live and Breath Agile

Before hiring a nearshore development partner, ensure they know how to deliver. Time is money in the software development industry, and your development partner should value both while delivering the right solution. One way to achieve perfection in doing this is Agile. It is a software development methodology that involves continuous planning, development, testing, integration, and deployment throughout the product development life cycle to ensure quality and bug-free solutions.

• Less technical debts
• Complete alignment and transparency
• Higher quality product
• On-time delivery
• User-focused testing
• Better stakeholder engagement

At Netsmartz, we just don’t follow agile, but it is embedded in our culture. Our agile approach embraces feedback to help our clients validate ideas fast and eliminate uncertainties for all stakeholders. Build your own team at Netsmartz to leverage top-notch engineering, design, and analytics.

2. Check Their Hiring Process

The success of your project will depend a lot on how fast your partner can hire and train new team members efficiently. Find out how they hire developers to ensure you only get access to the right talent. Here are a few pointers you should check before finalizing a deal:

• They must not have any gig workers or freelancers
• Their developer must work full-time with them and have long-term engagement
• They must follow a rigorous communication and technical vetting process
• Their resources must have 3-4 hours of overlap with PST

3. Employee Retention Rate Should Be High

When you invest in hiring development partners nearshore, ensure your engagement is long-term. Nothing is worse than training developers again and again for the same jobs. It will double your work and may put your project in jeopardy. Also, when a developer leaves a job, you lose their domain knowledge about your project. That is why hiring a partner with high retention rates is crucial.

4. Technical and Industry Expertise

While Agile is a best practice to follow for quality and timely software delivery, it is also mandatory to check the technical expertise of the personnel you hire. The venture and collaboration will fail if the resources you hire lack the required technical skills. They must hold a special skill set in the technologies your project uses. For example, if you are planning to hire a remote Magento development team, the resources should be proficient in PHP, object-oriented programming, and JavaScript for front-end development. Every project would need specific skills. Thus, it is best to list required skills first and then analyze nearshore development companies for skills.

Essential skills of a front-end developer	Essential skills of a back-end developer
HTML CSS JavaScript Communication Skills Creativity	Python Java Ruby Problem-Solving Skills Communication Skills

Along with good technical knowledge, they must have experience relevant to your industry. For example, if you are planning to build an eCommerce store for the healthcare industry, hire eCommerce healthcare developers only who know about compliance and other rules and regulations of the healthcare sector.

5. Language and Culture Similarity

The similarity in language and culture is the key to success in outsourcing partnerships. And this is also the main benefit of nearshoring. You get to work with people whose interests and work ethics align with yours. Thus, before you decide on hiring someone, make sure you consider how they communicate and what their cultural values are. The same culture is not just about having the same holidays but about how much you prioritize work and believe in helping each other.

Wrapping Up

When hiring a nearshore development partner, there are no quick fixes or shortcuts. You must first understand your business needs, list your priorities, interview diligently, and then choose a partner to support your needs. With a nearshore development partner like Netsmarts, you get:

• Technically proficient developers
• Agile and scrum experts
• Reliability and accountability
• 100% transparency
• Communication and collaboration

Get in touch with our experts for more information.